


Friends, Please

by orphan_account



Category: Bandom, Twenty One Pilots
Genre: Depression, Implied/Referenced Suicide, Mental Health Issues, Multi
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2014-10-12
Updated: 2014-10-28
Packaged: 2018-02-20 20:14:08
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 2,064
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2441555
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/orphan_account/pseuds/orphan_account
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>An initially happy but increasingly sad fic about friendship, hardship, love, and lack thereof.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Fine and Dandy

**Author's Note:**

> This isn't a fanfic about Tyler x Josh. The chapters are also gonna be coming out very slowly, I'm just too busy. Enjoy!

I sulked through the movie theater doors. “Do I seriously need to watch this?” I asked Jenna. “Why couldn’t we see, like, Dracula or something?”

“Oh, stop being such a baby, Josh.” She slapped me on the arm, light enough so it didn’t hurt too much but hard enough for me to get the message. “We’ve been going to the movies you’ve wanted to see for ages. It’s my turn now.”

“Ow,” I rubbed where she hit me and whined, but I was grinning. She had a point.

As we went to get popcorn, I noticed this kid playing one of the claw games they had so people wouldn’t get bored before their movie started. He had sick arm tattoos and was really into the game. I watched as he led the claw over a stuffed alien, one of those funny ones from Toy Story. He pressed the button, and the claw went down and grabbed the toy. Pretty impressive. I mean, those things are normally rigged, and he did it almost, like, effortlessly. He was silent as he retrieved it from the slot.

Why was I so interested in this guy? He looked about 17, like me, but so were a lot of people. I mean, his tattoos were pretty awesome. I guess I’m just into punk rock stuff, I dunno.

As the stranger held his prize, he walked over to who I assumed to be his friends; a gorgeous girl with curly red locks and a boy with mousy brown hair. The guy presented the alien to them. At this point, I wasn’t interested in him anymore. I was interested in his shirt.

He was wearing a Killers t-shirt! There was literally not one person that I knew from Ohio who liked them. Not one. I frantically tapped Jenna’s shoulder, trying to get her attention. “Hold on, I’m trying to get popcorn,” she said, brushing me off. I kept my eyes on the boy, making sure he didn’t leave, but that didn’t seem to be going to happen too soon. They were getting nachos, apparently.

As soon as Jenna finished ordering her food, I tapped her again. “What?” she asked.

“Do you see that kid over there?” She nodded. “Look at his shirt.”

“Isn’t that the band you like?”

“Yes! Do you get how exciting this is? I think I wanna say hi, should I? Would it be weird? What if he gets freaked out? What if--”

She cut me off. “Just go over. I’ll be right here. Try to find out what movie he’s going to see, maybe it’s the same one.” I doubted it. We were going to watch Dolphin Tale 2, of all things. As if someone that cool would wanna see that.

I took a deep breath and tried to gather my courage. I’ve never really had this dilemma before.

I finally walked toward him. He wasn’t facing me, so once I was close to him I cleared my throat. He turned around, smiling from some joke the girl told him. Something about lobsters, I think. When he saw me, I knew he was confused. “Um, hello. Do you need something?”

“Oh-- I just-- uhh,” I could barely talk. In a flash, Jenna came to my rescue, popcorn in her hands.

“He wanted to tell you he likes your shirt, he likes The Killers too.” I grinned, but I was still really embarrassed. I felt heat rise to my face and hoped I wasn’t blushing. Why couldn’t I just say it myself?

“Oh, really? That’s awesome!” he said. “I’d love to talk to you about them, I don’t know if you noticed but there’s not a lot of people around here that like them. Or at least, that’s what I’ve found.” I nodded. “Hey, what movie are you guys seeing? We’re seeing Dolphin Tale 2, Debby here,” he gestured to the redhead, “thought it would be a good idea.”

“Personally, I wanted to see Annabelle or Dracula, but no,” added the other boy. “I’m Mark, by the way.”

“Oh, right, names. I’m Tyler,” said the tattooed one.

“I’m Jenna.”

“Josh.”

“Oh so you do have a voice!” Debby joked at me.

I smiled, laughing just a little bit. “Yeah, I guess. But yeah, um, we’re seeing that too, Jenna wanted to.”

“Great!” said Mark. “We can sit next to each other.” I couldn’t stop smiling. New friends, and cool ones. And it seemed like Tyler felt the same. His smile was so wide, his eyes were reduced to squints.

“Josh and Mark can sit next to me so we can make fun of the movie together, and you girls can sit together so you can actually enjoy it,” Tyler suggested. Everyone agreed. We all made our way to Theater 7, where it was showing. I still wasn’t done grinning.

There was barely anyone inside, so the girls got seats right at the front and we sat a little bit behind them. We all figured that if we were gonna make fun of the movie, we wouldn’t wanna bother the people who actually wanted to see it.

An hour and a half later, the movie finished. I didn't hate it as much as I thought I would. Tyler and Mark made it more bearable, but the movie itself wasn't horrible, either. All in all, it was nice.


	2. Sick as Frick

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Tyler and Josh take their friendship to the next level and bond over some memes.

Jenna, Mark, Debby, Tyler and I walked out of the theater and into the cool evening air. It was getting kinda stuffy in there.

We all exchanged numbers, and as I punched Debby's into my phone, she complimented it. "I like your case a lot," she said. "I love aliens."

"Thanks," I said, flustered. It wasn't that special, just green with some eyes so it looked like an alien. But I guess it was kinda cool, now that she mentioned it.

"No problem!" She smiled at me. Wow. Her smile was really beautiful.  _She_  was really beautiful. And funny, and cool, and-- wait, what? 

Oh no. Oh my-- Josh, no. Stop. You don't like her, you just met her. Right?

Anyway, my little daydream was interrupted by Jenna. "I need to pee." 

Great.

"I gotta wait for her, then," I said to the rest of the group. "Hurry up, Jen." She nodded and ran back inside. 

"We'll wait with you!" Debby said to me, beaming. Tyler nodded and Mark gave me a thumbs up.

"N- No, it's totally okay, you don't need to do that if you don't want to," I stammered. These people were too nice.

"Don't worry about it," Tyler reassured me. "We want to right?" Mark and Debby nodded. He patted me on the back once. Okay, I guess.

I backed up against a wall and leaned on it, my legs sticking out. I fidgeted until I couldn't stand there doing nothing anymore, so I drummed an imaginary song on my thighs. "That's some cool finger-tapping you got going on there," Tyler said. I didn't even notice everyone was watching me. "It's pretty sick actually. I've always had an appreciation for music, and the whole punk scene." He smiled. So did I.

"Thanks. And I like that you called it sick. Like, you don't hear that word too much anymore, but I guess it's, like, sick as frick," I said. That was so stupid. What kind of sentence  _was_  that? What was I thinking?

"Sick as frick?" He laughed. "I'm gonna use that."

So he didn't think I was weird? Thank God.

Mark and Debby were already back to talking to each other, but Tyler leaned against the wall next to me. "So anyway," he said, "are you a drummer? You seem like you could be."

I wasn't prepared for that question, honestly. "I wanna be. I'm not great yet, but I play pretty hard. That counts for something, I guess. I'm working on making, like, my own style so it's not like I'm just any old drummer, you know?

"Yeah. You seem really good. I say go for it."

"What about you?" I wondered. "Do you do anything? Like, musically?"

He looked down and paused. "...I'm working on it," he said after a few seconds.

I didn't wanna press him further. He seemed kinda done on the subject. That's okay. Jenna was back, anyway.

"Those bathrooms were disgusting," she said. "There was barely any toilet paper, and it smelled like a fish stuffed up an asshole." 

We all laughed. It was kind of weird, actually. Like a really bad sitcom where someone tells a joke and everyone in the room laughs even though it wasn't that funny. But that's what made us laugh even more.

When we all finally calmed down, Tyler spoke. "Oh my God, I haven't laughed that hard since Mark peed his pants in fourth grade."

Mark pouted. "Shut up."

I laughed again. My chest was starting to hurt and my cheek muscles felt stretched out. That was the best kind of laughter.

Jenna gasped and tried to stop herself from laughing too. "Okay. Okay. Well, anyway. We gotta go, I think. I still need to drop Josh off and then get to my own house, and it's like 11 already. I gotta wake up tomorrow."

Tomorrow was Saturday. "Oh yeah... You have that interview thing, right?" I remembered.

"Yeah."

"Alright. Bye guys!"

Debby, Mark, and Tyler waved goodbye to us. "Maybe we can do this again," suggested Debby, smiling.

"That'd be cool," Jenna replied. "G'bye!" 

Jenna and I walked toward her car. Today was fun, but I was ready to go home.

*** 

Almost an hour later, I climbed into bed. It felt really good to be under the covers when it was this cold out. It wasn't too late yet, so I figured I'd hop onto twitter. 

I scrolled down my feed and refreshed until I couldn't anymore. I checked the time. 1 AM. Not bad, but I'm normally in bed later than that. It's easier to fall asleep that way. You keep yourself occupied, and maybe you'll be so tired you won't think as much as usual.

Maybe.

I put my phone down on my nightstand next to my bed, took a deep breath, and looked at the ceiling. I was about to close my eyes when I heard a noise. 

 _Bzzt. Bzzt. Bzzzt. Bzzt. Bzzt. Bzzzzt._ I was getting texts. From... Tyler?

I literally just met this guy today, and he was already texting me. Awesome.

"You still up?" he asked. "I can't sleep, and Debby and Mark are in bed. And they're the only people I really talk to."

"Yeah, I am. Why can't you sleep, though?"

"Too much stuff."

Got it. I'm not even being sarcastic here. "I understand," I replied. "This is really weird though. Late night texts are, like, the third tier of friendships, and we just met today."

"The 'third tier'? Hahaha. I kinda felt a cool connection to you today. Is that weird?"

"Nah, it's cool. Kinda sick actually."

"Sick as frick."

"Haha, yeah. Sick as frick."

I didn't know how to reply, so.... "Maybe 'sick as frick' will be our 'always'."

"Nooo. Stoppp," he said back. Remarks like that'll either ruin or, like, fortify any friendship. Hm. Fortify. Good word. "Can we stop with the memes and talk about something else, please?" Tyler pleaded.

"Haha. Sure. What do you wanna talk about?"

"Can you tell me a little more about your drumming? I've always been interested in that stuff and I really want to know more about it."

"What'd you wanna know?"

"Like, how'd you start? How'd you keep going? How do you stop being frustrated with yourself?"

I figured it wasn't just about me at this point. "I'm, uh, self-taught. When I first started getting interesting in music stuff, I just looked up a bunch of videos of people drumming and I was like 'This is cool'. As for being frustrated with myself..."

I sent that message and took some time into answering my next one.

"I've never really stopped. I guess that's it, though. Like, you need to get mad at yourself sometimes. That's what makes you get better, I guess."

There was a two minute pause between messages. "Makes sense," he finally wrote back.

We talked like that for a long time. It was nice, though; even though we were up 'til 2, it was nice to have someone to talk to.


End file.
